Chapter Text
Thundercracker flies in, low to the ground, a thundering boom shaking the building on either side of him as he transforms midair, landing next to a bright yellow earth vehicle that reminds the seeker of that annoying yellow Autobot. What was his name? Targeting systems identify twelve hostiles, humans, taking cover around a tank. Swooping down to grab the vehicle, Thundercracker throws it in the human direction. The organics scatter to avoid being crushed, and he takes the opportunity to aim the guns attached to his arms, taking out the humans before they can finish moving to cover. A well-aimed missile from his shoulder cannons hits the tank – probably not taking it out completely, but the damage is significant enough to slow.
::Enemy reinforcements incoming!:: Blackout shouts, and he glances up as two more of the human fighter jets roar overhead.
Missiles slam into Thundercracker's side, the impact sending him flying backwards into the building behind him with a shout of pain. Whatever rounds the humans are using are frustratingly effective, his plating sparking as the high-temperature rounds melt straight through his armour, burning away plating and sensors alike. The building crumbles around him, and he stares, briefly dazed, at the hole left behind, having been sent straight through the first apartment before he skidded to a halt halfway through the second one. His servo smacks against the ground as he attempts to push himself upright, gritting his denta with effort. The movement is agonising, and his arm gives out before he can even push himself up farther than a couple of feet.
Flopping back onto his back with another groan as damage reports began scrolling across his HUD, he stared up at the crumbling ceiling of the building. The cable in his left shoulder is completely snapped. He could move the arm, barely, thank Primus, but there was no chance it'd be able to support his weight. His attempt to get up just now had proven that. Other than that, the humans had blown a hole the size of a hubcap into his abdominal plates, and energon levels were dropping rapidly, but he wasn't critical. Yet. Overall, the damage could've been far worse. It was probably lucky he'd gone straight through the building – if he'd stayed out on the street, they most likely would've kept firing.
Thundercracker strains upward once more, the tips of his wings tearing into the drywall of the small room. The hole in his abdomen protests the sudden movement, energon spurting from the open wound and dripping down his pelvis to pool on the floor. He should probably get out of here before the whole building comes down on his helm.
A squeak of terror to his left draws his attention, and he turns to look, locating one of the small organics — humans – that inhabited this planet huddling behind the sofa he'd thrown across the room with his entrance. It was practically radiating terror, pressed firmly against the sofa as though it could merge with the furniture and become invisible.
It freezes for only a moment when their optics meet before it stumbles to its pedes, making a run for the hole in the wall. The sound of a jet rocks the building, quickly followed by another loud explosion, and Thundercracker lurches forward despite himself to grab it. The thing was going to get itself killed!
"No, no, we're not doing that." He groans, reaching out and catching the creature in his servo. It fights against the restraint, babbling fearfully until he gives it a little squeeze. The human shuts up almost immediately, screwing its optics shut.
"...Please don't hurt me." It whimpers, and Thundercracker gives the human a long look. Damn his soft spark. He's never been very good at the whole 'destroying small cute organics' thing.
"I'm not going to." He soothes absently, distracted by the reports flying by on his HUD. This fight was not going well. He allowed his hold on the human to loosen - it wasn't going to get away, but at least now he wasn't suffocating it with pressure. Probably. The human relaxes minutely in his palm, and Thundercracker leans back, free servo coming up to feel around the gory hole that the humans punched into his abdomen, gritting his denta as the touch sets off the pain sensors around the wound that hadn't been burnt away.
"...Are you alright?" It asks, leaning forward to peer at where energon was leaking around his digits. It looks concerned. How cute. Another explosion shakes the building, causing pieces of the ceiling to crumble away and land on his helm. Ah, frag. When the booming sounds of fighting fade again, he sets the human to his side. One digit nudges the human away, giving himself just enough room to fall to his back. Small servo's grip onto the plating of his arm. Why wasn't it just leaving?
"We need to get out of here." The human urges. "Get up, please." It had a point. If the ceiling was any indication, it was better to evacuate the building sooner rather than later before the entire thing came crashing down and finished the job the humans had started. Gritting his denta, he gives one last attempt to rise to his pedes. Alerts flash red and urgent across his HUD, and the action is aborted as quickly as he started. On second thought, maybe he was better off waiting for reinforcements – assuming there was any to be had. If Skywarp was still alive, the other seeker would probably come for him.
He wouldn't be surprised if the Decepticons left him for dead... unlike the persistent little human, who appeared to be vainly trying to pull him upright. The effort would be cute if it wasn't so futile.
"Go." Thundercracker garbles, unsure if he's speaking in Cybertronian or English. His visual feed was flickering – stasis lock incoming. Well. That wasn't good.
"How can I help?" It begs, ignoring his advice. The sound of its voice is distant, another sign of his incoming stasis lock. Or maybe just overshadowed by the sounds of battle. The noise of gunshots and shouting were getting louder again, signalling the fight was moving back to the area. Thundercracker stares at it for a moment, uncomprehending, before another explosion rocks the street, and the human stumbles, falling into his side.
"You can't –" He begins. Another explosion cuts him off, and he barely manages to move his arm in time to cover the human from more debris as heat washes over his plating.
::Thundercracker! Where are you?!:: Skywarps voice blasts his audials. He's yelling way too fragging loud, but the relief at hearing his trinemates voice overshadows the way his helm is throbbing. :: We're falling back! Megatron is down and out!::
::Here..:: Thundercracker pings Skywarp to his location – with any luck, he would be here quickly. The last thing Skywarp said finally sinks into his processor, and Thundercracker takes a distracted moment to mull over the news. Megatron was down? So they lost the fight, then. Starscream was going to be so pleased. Thundercracker rolls his helm over, watching as the little human huddles tightly against his side. His digits twitch, curling tighter around the human before his visual feed flickers out completely.
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This day was so, so fucked.
First, not only was the internet out but so was your data. Nobody seemed to have any idea what had happened to it. Getting to work had been hell – the light rail had been late by a full hour, probably due to the same complication that was making your mobile phone completely useless.
So, you'd been fired. Naturally. Then, right when you were considering how much alcohol and ice cream you'd need to make today, not just the worst day ever, the explosions started. You'd been cowering in fear under the table in your tiny living room when the big ass fucking robot bust through the wall. The impact had destroyed not only your apartment but the one next to you, creating a clear hole that allowed you to see all the way out to the street.
Said street now looked more like a war zone than the average city block it'd been a few hours ago.
And now, the robot might have just died on your living room floor. Like there was a snowball's chance in hell you were going to let that happen.
Your hands scrabbled against the big-ass fucking robot's armour, trying vainly to lift it. The tips of your fingers catch on the jagged edges, tearing the skin and making your grip slip with the combined slickness of your blood and whatever neon pink fluid the mech is leaking all over your hands.
You hiss in pain and let go of the robot's armour to press your injured hands against your shirt. Whatever that fluid is should not be getting in any type of wound.
"C'mon, c'mon, do not fucking die." You pant with exertion, taking a second to lean against the robot's arm to catch your breath. You weren't going to be able to move it. You were more likely to permanently injure yourself than you were to get it to budge an inch if you kept at it like this. The hole in its side is still liberally leaking that probably toxic fluid. Somehow, you doubt that bunching up your comforter and pressing it against the wound would have the same effect as staunching the bleeding on a human.
Should you try anyways?
It had to be better than just letting it bleed out.
Mind made up, you stand on shaky legs, stumbling out of the robot's hold and running to your miraculously still intact bedroom. Another explosion rocks the ground, and you scream, slipping into the door frame. Your elbow bangs against the corner of the frame, and you bite your lip, righting yourself. You don't really want to leave the robot, but the building felt like it was on the verge of collapsing at any moment. Guess you had to hurry.
Straightening, you cross the few steps to your bed, pulling hard at your comforter, gather the fabric in your arms, and sprint back to the robot. It hadn't somehow gotten up and walked away in the seconds you'd been gone, but its level of stillness unnerved you. When it'd first blown through your wall, its optics had been a bright red, but now that light had gone out and its optics were dark. Besides the fact that it was still leaking a massive neon puddle on your floor, there was no indication one way or the other that it was still even alive.
Do robots breathe? How does one check the vitals of a 30-foot mech?
Kneeling by its side, you peer into the hole in its side. The wound's edges seemed partially melted but were still more than sharp enough to slice open your fingers if you weren't careful. The injury wasn't as deep as you had expected, especially considering how much it was leaking – not that that meant anything. Abdominal wounds on humans bled plenty without having to go very deep.
The comforter is soaked almost immediately as you begin packing the wound. Doing this felt silly, but it had to be better than just sitting here and letting it bleed. Or, worse, leaving the robot to die.
A loud vvwoop noise, followed by the sound of something very heavy landing on the pavement, draws your attention to the street outside. The air pressure drops as the sound fades, causing your ears to pop uncomfortably.
"Ah!" You shriek, dropping to your knees to press against the side of your robot. Maybe if you made yourself very small and stayed very still, whatever was out there wouldn't see you huddled between your robot's arm and side.
"Thundercracker!" The robot – and it's definitely another robot, now that you can hear it – outside bellows. Its voice sounds similar to the robot that'd crashed through the wall of your apartment – uncannily human, with a hollow robotic edge that gives away that that voice isn't exactly what it seems. It yells again, this time in a warbling chittering language that makes the pitch of its voice drop several metres. No way that sound would ever be mistaken for a human.
You glance down at the pink streaking up your arms and legs. Was that robot out there friendly? If it'd been the one to blow a hole in your bot, then going out there to get its attention was probably a bad idea. On the other hand, if you don't do something, then your robot is almost definitely going to bleed out. Assuming robots even could bleed out.
This big-ass robot really wasn't your responsibility.
"Fuck." You whisper. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
It could've hurt you. You'd felt the ease with which it'd gripped your body when it had grabbed you. It could've killed you with the same effort you might use to squeeze a tube of toothpaste.
But it didn't.
Mind made up, you push yourself off the floor and run through your neighbour's apartment to the hole in the wall of your building. You stop at the edge of the hole, unwilling to step out onto the street when you can see smoke rising from some fire a couple of blocks away and hear the deafening sound of fighter jets flying overhead -- What on Earth was happening?
You wave your arms wildly, trying to catch the attention of the black and purple robot walking by your apartment. It's standing in the middle of the street, looking into the blown-out building across from your apartment. Before all this, that building had been a hyper-sketchy convenience store with decent 1-dollar coffees. Now, it was utterly unrecognisable beyond the ugly sign barely hanging on by a screw.
"Hey! Here!" You shout, trying to make yourself heard over the sounds of whatever the fuck was happening out here. The robot doesn't seem to notice, or maybe it's ignoring you. You strain to try and remember what it'd said when it first landed.
Thundercracker. Was that the name of the one dying in your apartment?
"Thundercracker is here! He's hurt, please –" Apparently, dropping the robot's name was all you needed to do because the one standing in the street whirls around with a speed you hadn't expected from something so big. The sudden movement startles you, and that's all the encouragement you need to scuttle back to your apartment, nearly tripping over the rubble littering the floor.
You kneel next to the robot's – Thundercracker -- side, fisting your hands in the soaked comforter. More of the ceiling crumbles down and lands on your head, mixing with your hair as the black robot kneels heavily, bending over to peer into the apartment. The concrete beneath its knee cracks until the impact, and it takes effort to tear your eyes away from it and back to Thundercracker. The comforter has soaked through completely, but at least the fluid isn't leaking out around it.
It makes an exasperated sigh, warbling something in that deep, alien tongue that sends shivers skittering down your spine and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
"I don't know how to stop the bleeding." You say quietly, and the robot pauses. Its eyes fall over you, narrowing at the remains of your comforter you'd pressed into the hole in Thundercracker's side. Obviously, your pathetic attempt to staunch the bleeding wasn't the correct course of action.
"Well, not like that." It snorts. A massive hand reached for you, easily plunking you from Thundercracker's side and dragging you out of the apartment. It stood, pinching you between two fingers like you might hold something you find mildly disgusting, a stark contrast from how Thundercracker wrapped his entire hand around you to support your weight. You glanced down at the drop, reaching up to dig your nails into the creases of the robot's hand. If it dropped you right now, you'd be lucky to get out of it with a broken leg.
"Typical of Thundercracker to pick up a pet." The mech holding you up scoffs, lifting you higher to hold you close to its face and gently shaking you back and forth to make you sway in the air. You strain to stay as still as possible, barely daring to breathe as tears begin gathering in your eyes.
You really hadn't asked for this to happen today.
"Stay right there." The mech rumbles, leaning back down. It doesn't bother to set you down gently, but you're grateful that it didn't drop you from a height high enough to legitimately hurt as you land on your feet, bending your knees to absorb the impact. The robot kneels down, fishing in the hole blown in your apartment with one arm like it's fumbling under the couch for a remote, and you take a few steps back to give it room.
You can hear the screech of metal on metal as it presumably digs its fingers into Thundercracker and pulls with a grunt, wrenching him out of the apartment building. It grabs Thundercrackers foot with its other hands and stands, dragging him out onto the street while you gape at the absolutely ridiculous show of strength. The movement is apparently the last straw for your apartment, the space behind Thundercracker caving in as the floor above collapses. At this point in your day, you take the loss of your shitty little apartment numbly.
In the light, you can see Thundercracker's colours proper, and you realise that he looks very similar to the black and purple robot, down to the shape of what looked like wings on their backs. The main difference is where this robot is black; Thundercracker is primarily a blue colour, with red highlights across his body.
The robot drops Thundercrackers foot, and you yelp, taking a step back as the massive foot lands uncomfortably close to where you are standing.
"Well, c'mon then, fleshling."
"What?" You turn, craning your neck to look up at its face.
"I said, come on." It rolls its eyes, leaning down to pick you up again. This time, you don't stay in its hold very long – it drops you onto Thundercrackers chest with a sneer. You land on your hands and knees, gaping up at it. "Stay still, so you don't die. Thundercracker always gets crabby when his pets die, and I don't want to deal with it."
"Wait, die? What do you mean die? I didn't–!" You start, not understanding what the fuck it was talking about. The robot shakes its head at you. That wooshing sound starts again, and you barely bite back a scream as a big fucking purple portal opens up beneath Thundercracker's body. A body that you are currently on top of!
"Stay still."
“Wait! Wait, waitwaitWAIT–”
It feels like all the air is being pulled out of your lungs. Your bones creak, and you blink your eyes open to find yourself lying flat on Thundercracker's chest, disoriented and nauseous.
You can't hear anything over the sound of your blood pounding in your ears, but you can taste blood and vaguely hope that you just bit your tongue rather than there being some kind of terrible internal issue. Your eyes flutter, and you can vaguely make out that you're in some sort of wooded area – definitely not Mission City – before they slip close again, and you're out like a light.
---------
Thundercracker's vision comes back slowly.
"About time." Skywarp's voice comes from his right, and Thundercracker huffs a static-laden laugh. His systems are rebooting slowly, damage reports scrolling across his HUD before he clears them.
"How long have I been out?" He asks, using his working arm to push himself into a sitting position. Skywarp's pede comes down hard on his injured shoulder before he can get up, pushing him back down into the dirt.
"Ow! What the frag, Skywarp?" Skywarp steps off him, fixing him with an unamused look.
"That's for picking up a fleshling without asking me first."
"A fleshling? What–?" Thundercracker suddenly becomes aware of the unconscious human resting on his chest plates. The black fibres growing from its head – hair – are splayed over his armour, and it's covered in energon. Right. The human from the building.
He hadn't meant to 'pick it up,' but Skywarp's tone rubs him the wrong way.
"I don't need your permission for anything." He brings his servo up to lift the human carefully off his chest plate so he can rise to his feet with the creature cradled carefully in his palm. The hole in his side is no longer spurting energon, auto-repair sequences doing their job to staunch the leak, but he can tell he's not going to be doing much fighting until he gets some repairs.
"You do if you want me to reconnect that cable in your shoulder." Skywarp responds smugly. Thundercracker rolls his eyes at him, popping the cockpit in his chassis and carefully manoeuvring the human to sit inside. The other seeker is standing with his servo on his hip, watching Thundercracker handle the human like he was looking at something particularly gross.
"Fine. Skywarp, can I please pick up a human?" The question is dripping with sarcasm, but it's apparently good enough for Skywarp, who shrugs, stepping up to Thundercracker and gesturing for him to come closer. He obliges, wincing as the plates covering the cables of his shoulder transform away to let his trinemate see the damage.
"You owe me one," Skywarp informs him, deftly locating the snapped cable and pinching the two ends together. "and you're responsible for taking care of it, TC." The laser Skywarp is using to temporarily bind the two ends together burns, making Thundercracker wince at the feeling. Not a lasting or good repair job by any means, but hopefully, it'd hold until a medic – or a CR chamber – was available.
"Naturally."